Facebook’s latest algorithm update

Written and compiled by Madré Roothman, Senior Social Media Strategist.

Facebook algorithm updates have become like my morning coffees: something I can’t live without. And the latest thing I also can’t live without when doing strategies for brands, has to be relevance.

Facebook relies on its Feed Quality Panel (or as Slate calls them: “A panel of news feed testers that has become Facebook’s equivalent of the Nielsen family”) to help determine news feed user relevance.

So what is user relevance according to this Nielsen equivalent?

The probability that a user wants to see a story at the top of their feed.

The probability that a user will like, comment on, click or share a story.

What does it mean for business pages?

Well, that all depends on your audience. But you can expect:

An increase in referral traffic, or

A decrease in referral traffic, or

Non-fluctuating referral traffic, if the rate at which stories/posts are clicked on match users giving negative feedback.

How to keep your clients happy then and stories at the top of the newsfeed?

Ensure that posts being clicked on surpass or match those that are hidden.

“The qualitative feedback tweak shows that engagement is not necessarily what Facebook optimizes the news feed for. Time spent on site is a much more important metric for Facebook. This leads us to the engagement rate for Facebook pages.”